Internship Background Part 1

The first day of my internship came much more quickly than expected. I arrived on Thursday morning and had the weekend to get accustomed to Australian culture before the internship started on the following Monday. CAPA, the internship placement program, had set up the first weekend with a few trips and tours around Sydney. Friday we took a massive walking tour in an attempt to fight through our horrible jet lag. We were given the basics to the public transportation system in order to at least get to central station and figure out our way back to our apartments. However, at this point I was so tired and cranky that barely any of it sank in; all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Some of the observations I made, that were quite obvious, were general differences that were easy to pick up; such as driving on the other side of the road and what type of businesses were around. Cultural differences on the human level were far too complex to try and absorb in my weakened state of mind.

            On Saturday, we had an 8am wake up call, which didn’t actually matter because most of us were up by 4am or so. I loaded into the massive coach only knowing that our final destination was to the Blue Mountains surrounding Sydney. We ended up touring around the Olympic park, which was built when Sydney hosted the Olympics. The area itself looked beautiful but it also seemed like there was a lack of activity, save a few big Rugby games, in order to keep it a bustling area. The next step on the tour was to Bondi Beach…our first glimpse at the ocean. Just as a side note, I was able to discuss with our tour guide the general weather pattern in Sydney, of which I admittedly had no clue. I did understand that it was going to be winter but their perception of winter is obviously much different than that of the Midwest. Their winter ranges in temperature from about 50 to 70 degrees and is variable on a day-to-day basis. It is generally much more windy and rainy during their winter months but can still have days that reach almost up to eighty degrees, so when I left in the morning I had no clue what the rest of the day would end up being. That being said, our troop of Boilermakers rolled up to the beach and went straight knee deep in water while being awkwardly stared at by locals.  We shamelessly walked up and down the beach for about an hour while the bundled up locals sat back thinking it was a chilly day. Continuing our tour north we were able to stop in a little mountain town where I started to get a feel of ordering food and communicating on a business level. Not to mention, I was able to dig into one of Australia’s famous meat pies…a spicy meat filled pie topped with mashed peas and potatoes, drizzled with delicious gravy. Once we arrived at the Blue Mountains I realized how crucial that lunch would be as I descended onto the hiking path for the next few hours. After the long day of hiking the picturesque mountain range began to darken as the sun set, which was around 5pm and didn’t help with the jet lag. The bus ride home gave me the opportunity to check out an Australian made and based film. The movie was called Red Dog and supplied me with ample questions to ask any Australians that I met, namely a slew of phrases that I couldn’t remotely understand.

            Sunday was the first day I was totally free; I used this time to, quite literally, get lost around the city. I was able to get a feel for the scope and area surrounding my apartment as well as go on a “dry run” to my internship site. I was able to successfully go from Buses to Trains and back again without being totally helpless, which was a surprise. I spent the rest of the day preparing for, what CAPA called, my interview for my internship. However, the next day was never actually an interview, rather just my first day of work.

            Just for some background, I had no clue at all what my internship was going to entail. All that I knew was that I was working in the office of the Attorney General and member of Parliament Greg Smith. When I arrived, after about an hour total commute, I was actually fairly unimpressed with the area and the office in general. There were only two people working in the small office area; Zorica, my site supervisor, and Scott. Zorica started by giving me a quick tour of the office and the larger office complex while Scott and I chatted about general Australian culture. I quickly started to pick up the “laid back” work attitude that I was told to expect while sipping on tea and biscuits in the break room. The first day was mainly filled with introductions and an attempt by Zorica and Scott to get me up to speed on the workings of Australian politics. However, an interesting opportunity came up a couple hours into my internship where I was able to sit in on a “fire safety” meeting. I was forewarned that it would be a bit boring however I found it interesting because I was still keen on observing how people communicated with each other. It was essentially a boardroom filled with representatives from each office within the complex and was filled with discussions regarding past fire safety techniques and such. Not long after that I was introduced to a few of the tasks that were to fill up my time over the next several weeks. In this office, the Epping branch, my main tasks were to update data sheets of constituent correspondences with the office; essentially excel sheet updates. I read many of the letters and inquiries that members of the community write and attempt to classify and organize them to a point that I could write letters of response that cover more than just one specific query.